By Mar-Vic Cagurangan
Variety News Staff

ALTHOUGH Martin Luther King Jr. Day is not a government of Guam holiday, Guam joins the nation in celebrating the birth of the man who gave birth to the civil rights and racial equality movement. (See related story on page 16)
Acting Gov. Mike W. Cruz signed on Friday a proclamation declaring the week of Jan. 15 to 21 as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Observance Week.
“Dr. King was an extraordinary leader whose vision led the way for one of our country’s most important movements,” Cruz said. “He fought peacefully to bring the ideals of liberty, equality and justice to all who call our nation home.”
King was born on Jan. 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. During the 1950s, Dr. King became active in the movement for civil rights and racial equality following Rosa Parks’ arrest for violating the segregated seating ordinance on a public bus in Montgomery, Alabama.
King participated in the bus boycott and many other peaceful demonstrations that protested the unfair treatment of African-Americans.
King, who had become a national hero and an acknowledged leader in the civil rights struggle, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.
He was assassinated on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee.